Almost 4 billion passengers took to the air last year.  For many, air travel is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity.  While few of us would cite air travel or airports as the highlight of our trip, they facilitate what we really need to do.  We all long for a journey that’s free of hassle, runs seamlessly and keeps us safe throughout.  Instead, as air passenger numbers continue to grow at rapid rates, what we often get are overcrowded terminals and systems that just can’t keep pace with demand.

How should we marry expectation with reality?  IATA itself recognises that the solution might just lie with technology rather than in airport expansion.  It’s in the airport’s interest to process people in a timely fashion, of course, enabling passengers to gain time to spend their money at the airside restaurants and retail outlets.

Self service and automation

Facial recognition airport
source: japantimes

Self service and automation is becoming commonplace in many airports.  According to IATA’s Global Passenger Survey, it’s popular too.  Almost three quarters of those interviewed had used electronic boarding passes and around half were happiest when using self-service bag drops.  Over half had used automated immigration gates in 2017.  But providing sufficient terminals to keep the traffic flowing is essential – IATA found that passengers expected to be able to use a self-service bag drop within three minutes, whereas they’d queue for longer to see a person.  Biometrics also have a part to play, with fingerprint and iris scans being trialled in many airports.  Delta rolled out its first biometric bag drop at Minneapolis-St Paul Airport last year, while biometric facial recognition has been introduced in nine US airports.  The reaction is largely positive.

More tracking technology

Baggage tracking is another area where technology has an important job to do.  IATA Resolution 753, becomes mandatory on June 1st this year.  Cross-industry tracking is intended to reduce the number of bags lost or mishandled, with checks in place at four crucial stages: passenger handover to airline, loading, delivery to the carousel and return to the passenger.  Upgraded baggage scanners and smart labels incorporating radio frequency identification devices will help ensure that the chance of losing a bag is significantly reduced.  With around half of passengers indicating that they’d use a live tracking feature, IATA Resolution 753 is an important starting point.

Social Media for better customer relationships

For many passengers, a key priority needs to be the formation of better customer relationships.  Social media has a crucial role to play in this.  As passengers take to Twitter to vent when things go wrong, it’s good to pre-empt any issues by having a responsive, informative and placatory voice out there in cyberspace.  From the consumer point of view, the knowledge that airport personnel are aware of a problem and are on the case goes a long way to calming nerves.  A flight delay is no one’s friend, but a friendly voice helping to rebook or inform is certainly going to minimise the stress that it induces.  Humour, used appropriately, is also vital.

We live in a high tech world and 21st century travellers are rightly demanding that technology smoothes their path.  It’s up to airports to provide what the customers want.

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